For one more day, the out-of-town scoreboard will glow with significant happenings from coast to coast. Oct. 8 brings us the final quadrupleheader ofMajor League Baseball's playoffs, with a pair of Game 3s in the National League Division Series and two Game 4s in the American League – and the possibility of four booze-fueled celebrations. Desperation will come from all quarters, an all-hands-on-deck situation both for teams facing elimination and those wanting to administer the knockout before their beleaguered opponent gets back up. With that, a look at the fourAL and NL Division Seriesmatchups, with berths in the respective league championship series there for the taking: This series is a lot closer than it looks. With the Tigers' inconsistent offense chasing pitches and largely flailing against Logan Gilbert, the Mariners took an 8-1 lead into the ninth inning of Game 3 beforeprevailing 8-4. Two shots at a third victory makes their advancement to the ALCS seem like a formality. But the Tigers can still turn this into at least a pebble fight. They have a slight advantage on the mound in Game 4, starting All-Star Casey Mize – who tailed off in the second half – against fellow righty Bryce Miller, who battled elbow inflammation and posted a 5.68 ERA and 1.41 WHIP this year. Miller returned from injury in August yet was still hit hard in September (5.61 ERA, 1.40 WHIP in five starts). Meanwhile, the Mariners' great bullpen will soon have to worry about diminishing October returns. Ace relievers Eduard Bazardo, Matt Brash and closer Andres Muñoz all pitched in the first three games, which isn't totally anomalous; Muñoz pitched three times in four days on eight occasions in the regular season. Yet getting him in the game by scoring three runs in the ninth of Game 3 was both a moral and actual victory for the Tigers. "It was nice to get Muñoz an inning in there," says Tigers manager A.J. Hinch. A win, and they all go back to Seattle, where presumed AL Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal will start the winner-take-all-game for Detroit. But it's all immaterial unless they can hit: The Tigers have struck out 35 times against just 10 walks in this series. It's been seven years since the Brewers wona one-game playoffat Wrigley Field to win the NL Central in 2018, and the Cubs haven't been past the division series since. Wrigley Field has since been renovated, but the smaller-market Brewers have been more relevant in the years since. "You took a shower, and there's a foot of water, you're standing in a foot of water as you're showering, but somehow it felt good," Brewers manager Pat Murphy, then the bench coach under Craig Counsell, remembers of that day. Now, Milwaukee can send its Great Lakes nemeses – and former skipper Counsell - home for the winter. In taking a 2-0 lead, the Brewers certainly made the Cubs look like a dead team walking, blitzing lefty starters Matthew Boyd and Shota Imanaga for a combined 10 runs and nine hits in just 3 ⅓ innings. Now, veteran Jameson Taillon must prove he's not out of gas to stave off elimination – as he did inGame 3 of the wild-card seriesagainst San Diego. The Brewers? They'll turn to a kid from Chicagoland's northwest suburbs to put the Cubs away. Quinn Priester, a kid from Cary, has been the biggest revelation for Milwaukee this season, settling into the rotation after failed stints with Pittsburgh and Boston. "Growing up, coming to Wrigley Field all the time, let alone starting a playoff game here is definitely something that's really cool," says Priester. "If I would have told my 10-year-old self this, it would be pretty darned cool." So, just which team is going for the kill, here? Toronto came into Yankee Stadium with bands of house money to play with, knowing one loss would only nominally hurt – yet things went about as bad as they possibly could've from a vibes standpoint. Oh, Vlad Guerrero Jr. hit his daily home run and Superman'd across home plate for another run. But blowing a 6-1 lead and committing three pretty grim defensive gaffes – the coup de grace Addison Barger's dropped popup precedingAaron Judge's game-tying three-run homer– was about the worst thing that could've happened. Now, the Yankees have cocksure rookie Cam Schlittler – coming off hisepic season-saving Game 3 wild card performance– aiming to square the series. The Blue Jays will counter with a bullpen game of some sort – or, something else. "I think everyone's available tomorrow," Blue Jays manager John Schneider said after Game 3. While Toronto has its own rookie ace in the hole for a Game 5 – Trey Yesavage – Schneider must ponder just how all-in he might go to win Game 4 and keep the Yankees out of Canada for a winner-take-all contest. Deploy Kevin Gausman in relief on three days' rest? Burn Yesavage in a short burst now, knowing he threw just 78 pitches in Game 2? Either way, it's fantastic theater for prime time in the Bronx. The superstars have checked in: Guerrero is 8-for-13 with three homers and eight RBIs in the three games, while Judge is 7-for-11 with that season-saving, foul pole-clanging Game 3 blast. In a series with Shohei Ohtani, Kyle Schwarber, Bryce Harper, Mookie Betts, Teoscar Hernández and other sluggers in tow, a grand total of one home run has been hit in the first two games. That was Hernández's series-shifting Game 1 blast in Philadelphia and with the teams reconvening in L.A., the team on the wrong end of the 2-0 score would like the vibes to shift, too. "We want to go up there, we want to hit, we want to bang the best way we can," Harper said on Tuesday's off day. That, they have not done: Schwarber and Harper are a combined 1-for-14 with eight strikeouts, enabling the Dodgers to escape with a pair of high-wire wins in Philly. Now? The Phillies have no choice but piggyback veteran right-hander Aaron Nola and lefty Ranger Suarez, while the Dodgers counter with ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto. The odds are overwhelmingly in the Dodgers' favor, and a lifeless Phillies offense makes the notion of a sweep feel palpable. That would send the Phillies into another winter of discontent and uncertainty, starting with manager Rob Thomson and extending to pending free agents Schwarber and Realmuto – and what, exactly, a team consistently in the mid-90s win range needs to translate it to the playoffs. For now, at least one more game. "I think that's the biggest thing, too, man, is enjoying the moment because not every year you can play in the postseason," Harper said. "Obviously our biggest goal and ultimate goal is to win a World Series every time you get to spring training, just like any other team. "It's still got to be the same mindset, same ultimate goal of doing that." This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:MLB playoff games today: Division series could be clinched Wednesday
